In a beauty shop called Perfect Look
your blindness sits upon a couch.
Companions are two bright white canes
and hands that grope for
utter sensitivity. I watch you
in the wide mirror of a nervous room,
where people speak of everything
except that that. That fact
they cannot reconcile.
Your patience in a line of clients
passing you. Hurried by a slipping sun.
We have the blessing of seeing it set,
take its palette quite for granted
writing off its orange shade
like marmalade beside a slate
of common toast.
We wonder why your smile is broad.
Caught in lesser tragedies
of grocery lists and kids
to channel to and from their school bells.
At scissor time, you cannot see
and follow the blades with fingertips.
Grapple with a hue of darkness
most of us will never know.
Closer to the truer edge
of canyons traveled by their dust.
The ones we've buffed like fine antiques.
Your courage makes my weakness shine.